Sazerac May 2026

SAZERAC

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JOI DE VIVRE

What would Mama do?: The other day, I stood next to my mom and realized we’re the same height. Five feet and four inches. Mama, who once towered over little Joi, now struggles to meet me eye to eye while scolding me about getting my car tags renewed. We’re a lot alike these days — but not when it comes to boring obligations such as car maintenance. If you asked her about me, she’d say, “she’s my mini me,” even though we’re the same height, weight, width and shoe size — there’s not much “mini” left in me. Growing up, I would follow her everywhere, like a duckling to a duck. To the bathroom so she could braid my hair, the kitchen for some seasoned pretzels and even to the front porch to water her half-dead flowers — my grandma’s green thumb skipped a generation. Nowadays, since we don’t live under the same roof, instead of following her around the house, I try to follow her thought process. “What would Mama do?” enters my head any time I’m stuck in a sticky situation. No, Mama wouldn’t scream in a fit of rage because Nelly, my greedy cat, scarfed down my hamburger when I wasn’t looking — yet again. She would simply make another one — I may have inherited my mother’s looks but I did not gain her patience. One day when I’m older, I hope to be half as wise as her so that I don’t have to search my brain and wonder “what would Mama do?” I can simply just do it.

Window on the Past

An extravagant pageant, lively games and a crown fit for a queen. In 1912, being May Day queen at State Normal and Industrial College (now UNCG) was the highest honor and typically bestowed upon a senior elected by her peers. Only the noblest, bravest warriors were tasked with protecting her court train from the dangers of the freshly cut grass blades.

Unsolicited Advice

When it comes to wordplay, we love figures of speech as much as the next person. “Shoot for the stars” and “go the extra mile” are a couple we keep in our arsenal anytime we need to spice up a conversation. They can be motivational and used to cheer one up when down in the dumps. While some bring good intentions, others can be misunderstood because of their fragmentation. No one likes a half-baked quote shoved down their throat — but we will gladly scarf down a gooey, half-baked cookie. Whether it’s to inspire or just for some good, playful writing, we’d bet our bottom dollar you don’t know the whole shebang. So, if you know someone in a blue funk and they’re in need of some encouraging words, here are some apt idioms you can roll out to bring their spirits up.

Some say “the early bird catches the worm,” which implies that the sooner you chase the opportunity, the better advantage you will have over others. While agreeable, it could be argued that waiting could also be a better bet. The full phrase “the early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese,” implies that an opportunity could be disguised as bait. Granted, worms and cheese may not be your snack of choice, it’s still a good reminder that the first opportunities could come with higher risks and sometimes second place can put you ahead of the game. So before you chase, stop and assess whether you’re about to be rewarded or about to bite the bait.

If starting a new hobby consists of finding something you’re interested in, getting really engaged in it and then letting it go then don’t worry about being called a quitter. It takes a lot of courage to start something new, but it takes a lot more courage to quit when something isn’t working out for you. Our bag of idioms tells us that a Jack of all trades is a master of none, though oftentimes better than a master of one. Being a master of none isn’t always bad. It means you possess knowledge across multiple fields. For example, a hotdog expert couldn’t tell you squat about how to make a good burger but, with the extra knowledge you have, you’ll be able to whip up — or better yet, flip up — something juicy and savory.

As a child you were probably taught to suppress your curiosity and to keep your questions at bay. But, in a world of “follow the leader,” we could use more curious thinkers. Innovators and their inventions all started with a thirst for knowledge. Sure, people say “Curiosity killed the cat,” but the full, often overlooked version of the idiom is “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” Follow your nose, ask questions and impress your inner child with your inquisitiveness — but use caution, you don’t have eight more lives to spare.   

Our 2026 Essay Contest

Sun’s out, pen’s out. It’s time for our annual writing contest and this time we want you to think back on all those “How I spent my summer vacation” assignments of your elementary school youth. Whether it’s about a vacay or a staycay, we want an essay. Tell us about a true tale as remembered by you about a trip to the beach or about the time you took a week off to meditate for hours a day wearing nothing but your socks and a bedsheet. As always, there are ground rules:

Submit no more than 600 words in conventional form — a PDF, Google document, or a word or pages file works well. Please no secret code that requires a decoder ring. We’ve misplaced said ring. Email entries to cassie@ohenrymag.com.

One entry per writer.

Deadline to enter is September 30, 2026.

Top three winners will be contacted via email, awarded a monetary prize and their essay printed in a forthcoming issue of O.Henry.

Art to Heart

For some, disorder and mayhem may stifle their artistic abilities, but, for art historian and artist Will South, chaos serves as a muse for his paintings. “So, it all started with the pandemic,” says South. “Then, next thing you know, the pieces became directly inspired by a lot of the troubles in the world.” After his 2020 retirement from serving as chief curator for the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, he moved to Greensboro. South saw the pandemonium that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and, like many creatives at the time, decided to dust his palette off and paint, which led him to fill canvas after canvas, until he created the collection for his present exhibit, Catastrophic Times: Paintings by Will South. South uses his art to speak for the people who can’t speak for themselves and says that making images is his way of engaging with the world. “Now, we have these other conflicts going around, so I started painting things that were directly related to them.” What started out as a reaction to a tumultuous time evolved into a response to the larger issues that arose after — like, he says, the murder of innocent African Americans through police brutality. Though South most recently uses his art to reflect on current events, he has also been known to dig into the past. He is the author of many books, including Henry Ossawa Tanner: Artist in the Lion’s Den, which explains and seeks to correct the myths surrounding 19th-century artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, who was the first African American artist to reach international acclaim. He hopes that by sharing his own art with the world, it will gently move the needle toward global equality and encourage kindness toward those going through troubled times. “When you see something in life, you cannot unsee it,” South says.

You can find Catastrophic Times: Paintings by Will South in Gallery 1250 at Revolution Mill, on display through June 26, and hear directly from South a 2 p.m., Saturday, May 16. Info: revolutionmillgreensboro.com.

Tiny Tale

TINY TALE

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Memorial Day

A flag for the forgotten

By James Celano

Teddy got tired of throwing stones at a tree and called out: “Ya wanna go get some flags?” Without answering, I started through the woods towards the cemetery. It was the Saturday after Memorial Day. Janet said it was going to rain cats and dogs on Sunday. Sisters always say things like that. Teddy and I would have just said it was going to rain a lot. However you said it, the flags were going to get all wet and would probably get thrown out. So why not let us kids have some? After all, people take down Halloween and Christmas decorations, so what’s the difference? That’s the way we saw it, but the caretaker didn’t. The year before, he had ambushed us in his pickup. “What are you boys doing with those flags?”

“We thought it’d be OK to take them now,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not. Put them in the truck.”

Teddy held up a blue flag with a cool insignia, a real prize. “Can I keep this one?”

“Put it in the truck!”

Our Lady of Mercy was a big woman, a little over 60 acres. Freight trains ran just beyond her left side. Grandmom said the trains carried the souls of the dead away. Sometimes in bed at night, I could hear the trains rumbling over the tracks and wondered where all those souls were going. Maybe one way was to heaven and the other way was to hell.

The gate at the south end was locked, but a section of chain-link fence torn away from a post was just wide enough for our skinny bodies to squeeze through. Red, white and blue waved all over the land of free flags. Teddy and I began running all over the place, snatching up stars-and-stripes and being careful not to step on any graves. No kid needs that kind of bad luck. Neither of us found one of those blue flags with the cool insignia, and, boy, did we ever look. Teddy still simmered a little over the one he lost.

The south end was also where the little kids were buried. Tall trees, growing just outside the fence, shaded small plots on either side of the gate. It was the creepiest part of the cemetery, so we never left without giving it a good going-over. Since the only legitimate way into the cemetery was the north gate, the kids lay at the far end of anyone else’s sympathy. But in our own way, in the way we marveled at their brief life and sudden death, we, at least, mourned them.

One shiny granite slab jumped out.

Gabriela “Gabby” Minelski

Born: February 2, 1960

Died: April 25, 1962 

“Hey Teddy, check this out. This little girl just died.”

Except for the new kid’s, the stones looked neglected and sad. It didn’t look like anyone ever visited. No flowers, no flags. But a kid wouldn’t want flowers. Better to leave a toy. But there weren’t any toys either. Someone would probably swipe them. Probably one of us.

Out of nowhere, a picture of Gabby down there in the dark popped into my head, her hair mussed and knotted, and her eyes full of ants. I have a good imagination . . . too good, and sometimes the pictures in my head give me the jeebies.

“Our Angel” was all one stone said, and this:

Born: November 9, 1952

Died: November 12, 1952

“Jeez,” I said, “this kid only lived three days.”

A layer of fuzzy moss that Teddy said looked like green hair covered the top of “Our Angel’s” gravestone, and smack-dab in the middle was a black acorn. That one threw us for a loop. It couldn’t have fallen from a tree without bouncing off and onto the ground. Maybe a squirrel stashed it there for later and forgot about it. He might have spent half the winter wondering, “Now, where did I leave that acorn?”

I told you I have a good imagination. “Someday that imagination of yours is gonna get you in trouble,” my mother told me, but so far, so good.

Another grave had two names, a boy and a girl, born one day, dead two weeks later. Teddy wondered if they were in the same coffin, or if one was on top of the other. “It would be better if they were in the same coffin,” I said. “Their mom and dad could save some money that way.”

“It’d be better if they were in the same coffin, anyway,” Teddy said. “Then they could play together in heaven.”

It was OK for Teddy to say that, being only 7 years old and all. Of course, if they weren’t baptized, the dead kids couldn’t get into heaven. Limbo was the best they could do. I didn’t like to think about that. It didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t their fault, after all. But, even though limbo wasn’t as good as heaven, it was a heck of a sight better than purgatory or hell.

One small grave lay at the far end, separate from the rest. Henry Liddle — 4 years old. Maybe Henry was one of those quiet kids who preferred his own company. A crouching angel with sad eyes and a chipped nose prayed over Henry. The stone was a little cockeyed, as if the angel’s grief had become too big a burden and knocked the whole thing out of kilter. The granite on Henry’s marker was stained with green moss, too.

“Well, I got my flags,” I said, turning my back on little Henry. “I’m getting outta here.” It was when I reached the hole in the fence that I saw Teddy crouching behind the angel with the chipped nose. “C’mon,” I yelled back, “I don’t want that guy to catch us again.”

On the way home, I asked Teddy how many flags he had.

“Five.”

“I thought you got six, like me?”

“Nah,” he said, “I only took five.”

O.Henry Ending

O.HENRY ENDING

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Spice Relief

Handling jalapeño pain

By Walt Pilcher

I may not be a cultural cuisine aficionado, but I have a nose for Mexican food.

Smoky scents from carne asada or grilled chicken in citrus and spices. The earthy heat of roasted jalapeños or chipotles. Mildly nutty corn or wheat tortillas. The savory sizzle of refried beans. Rice sautéed with onions and garlic. Zesty cilantro and lime. Stale cerveza (beer). Uniquely familiar aromas. I’ll know I’ve stepped into a taqueria even if there’s no telltale mariachi music. And with good reason.

Return with me now to the summer of 1965, where I am about to experience both a startling cultural trauma and a culinary revelation of world-class magnitude. My new wife, Carol, and I are driving cross-country to California for grad school and work. Late one evening, we stop for dinner in lonesome Wagon Mound, New Mexico, population 695. Not much is there except the iconic butte the town is named for and what appears to be the only restaurant, a Mexican establishment, the name of which, as far as we can tell, is the single word on a neon sign: “EAT.” We are starving.  

We place our orders. Carol wisely chooses a cheeseburger, but I must show off my machismo and try something adventurous, a spicy Mexican dish with a baffling name now lost to memory. The food comes and it smells good. As Carol savors the first bite of her burger and I am just about to dig into my mystery meal, I notice the kitchen staff surreptitiously peering out as if to see how the gringo (me) will react to what they have prepared. Undaunted, I fork a mouthful.  

¡Madre mía! First my lips burn. Then my tongue does a Mexican “hot” dance. My nose runs. Soon my throat is a tunnel of fire. Gulping my icy Coke does nothing to relieve the pain. I dare not look at the kitchen staff lest they reap satisfaction from their little joke. Quickly, in an almost involuntary reaction as when one claps a protective hand on a fresh wound, I grab the tortilla that accompanies my meal and slap it on the flames. Amazingly, the pain stops! ¡Qué sorpresa! The gringo has prevailed!

I do not leave a generous tip.

But maybe I should have. It turns out tortillas and other wheat-based foods contain starch and sometimes a bit of fat, both of which can help absorb capsaicin, the compound that causes the burning sensation. A possible contributing factor is that wheat contains traces of humulene and myrcene, terpene compounds that fool the brain into not feeling the topical discomfort. Flour tortillas, bread, dinner rolls, pita and all sorts of grainy foods seem to extinguish the fire. Foods made from hops, like beer and sauces, are richer in the terpenes and potentially have even more of this soothing effect. Science aside, I only know when I touched the tortilla to my lips, the pain went away. Knowing wheat-based foods are an antidote for spice pain has proven quite useful to me and to friends with whom I’ve shared this knowledge during travels worldwide and in the wide range of ethnic eateries here at home.  

Whenever I inhale the distinctive aromas of Mexican cuisine, my thoughts return to Wagon Mound and the prank-turned-epiphany that changed my life. How pleasurable eating spicy food has become since that transformative experience. And now I know why beer washes down Mexican so well.

I have not gone back to Wagon Mound other than in my mind. I wonder if the EAT restaurant is still there. Has it become a chain? I have seen other EAT signs in my travels, so maybe.

If it has, I hope the staff is still pranking the gringos. 

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

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My Two Cents

The changing nature of cool

By Maria Johnson

I really wanted those penny loafers.

They were displayed near the oxfords in the children’s shoe store where my mom took us for “good shoes” when I was growing up.

The place smelled like new leather and Sunday school. Stiff and uncomfortable, in both cases.

Which brings us back to the loafers.

I had flat feet, and someone — maybe my mom, maybe a doctor — decided that I needed to wear “orthopedic shoes,” which meant lace-up oxfords with built-in arch support.

They might as well have said, “Shoes that are ugly as all get-out, not to mention uncool,” because they were both.

I was around kindergarten age, old enough to have a budding idea of what was considered desirable outside of my family. Orthopedic shoes from Howard Curry Shoes in Lexington, Kentucky, were not on the list.

The only good thing about that store, in my mind, was The Talking Tree.

You don’t know about The Talking Tree?

Well, on the right wall as you walked in, there was a sculpted tree with a human face, like the trees in The Wizard of Oz, only this one was smiling.

Near The Talking Tree, there was a small wooden bridge that you walked over. It was all very storybook-y. The most enchanting thing was that when you walked out with your new shoes, The Talking Tree would call you by name, saying something like, “Enjoy your pretty new shoes, Maria.”

Even in my 5-year-old mind, as I carried out my dorky shoes, I’d be thinking, “Yeah, right.”

Which means I believed in The Talking Tree somewhat, even though I thought it was full of sap.

It took me a few years to figure out that The Talking Tree never called my name on the way in, only on the way out, after my mom had dropped a wad on my supposedly pretty shoes.

I remember the first time The Talking Tree bade me farewell, and I turned and waved at the sales lady who was talking into a microphone at the counter behind me.

Busted.

Never again did I think seriously about owning a pair of real-deal penny loafers until recently, when I read a glowing review of some “affordable Italian penny loafers,” which is a little like saying an “affordable Italian sports car”.

Something in me was rekindled.

I had to have penny loafers. Not the pricey Italian model, mind you. Rather, a supple (sorry, Bass Weejuns) and reasonably priced version. With actual pennies stuck in the slots because, to go all Honest Abe on you, I’m mourning the penny.

Unless you’ve been living under a Coinstar machine, you probably know that the U.S. penny went out of production last November. I get why. It cost 4 cents to make a 1-cent piece of currency.

But like many people, I have pockets full of memories associated with pennies, which were made with 95 percent copper when I was a kid.

That’s why they weathered to a green patina.

That’s why some people used them to “fix” a glitchy lightbulb or replace a blown fuse. Don’t ask these people for snapshots to document the practices; their photographs likely burned in house fires.

In my own childhood home, one electrical outlet was fried by a child — there were only two of us, and neither will cop to this — who wondered what would happen if you stuck a penny, vertically, into an outlet, as if you were playing the slots in Vegas.

Answer: ZZZZZTTT!!!

I can only surmise that whoever tried this dangerous (in retrospect) stunt was gripping the penny with a pair of rubber-handled pliers, or only one of us would be left with any credible deniability.

A more common practice of the time was putting pennies on railroad tracks, waiting for a train to go by, then marveling that a locomotive weighing more than 100 tons, could flatten a penny into a faceless disc.

This, too, was treacherous, not only because it brought kids into close proximity with diesel locomotives, but because apparently — and I learned this only recently — a train’s fast-moving wheels can spit out a penny as a deadly projectile.

On a lighter, less lethal note, pennies had wholesome uses, too.

We could toss a penny into a public fountain and make a wish.

We could pick up a found penny — something I still do without thinking — for good luck, especially if it were heads-up.

We could slip a couple of new pennies into our loafers. Looking at you, Talking Tree.

We could feed a penny into a bubble-headed candy machine, twist the crank and get a handful of awful chewing gum or those godforsaken Boston Baked Beans.

Sensible people collected pennies. My maternal grandmother was a well-known penny pincher who turned loose only for a good cause. She tied a couple of pennies into the corners of handkerchiefs for my mom and my aunt to take to Sunday school as their offering during the Great Depression.

Later, when I was a kid, my grandmother coached us to be on the lookout for what she called “wheat pennies,” which had two wheat stalks, pictured like parentheses, on the backside.

The proper name was Lincoln wheat pennies. They were made from 1901 to 1958, and my grandmother seemed to think they were valuable post-production.

She was somewhat correct.

Today, a 1933-D (“D” for the Denver mint) wheat penny is worth more than $2.

A 1931-S (“S” for the San Francisco mint) is worth more than $40.

Put that in your loafers and stroll it.

Pennies also became an emblem: a symbol for the least among us that nevertheless held worth, especially when amassed.

This principle was foundational to the most basic form of childhood fundraising: Dump a coffee can full of coins on the floor and get to sorting.

It took forever to assemble a decent chunk of change in paper wrappers. But it added up. That was the beauty of the penny. It was little, but it mattered. A lot of them mattered a lot.

On May 7, Sanctuary House, a Greensboro nonprofit serving people who experience mental health issues, will hold a weekday lunchtime event called Mile of Pennies.

Why pennies? Because Abe Lincoln, who is pictured on every cent, suffered from depression. He certainly wasn’t the last president to struggle with mental health problems, but he was open about it, referring to his melancholy as his “black dog.”

Plastic cup by plastic cup, event organizers will hand out a mile’s worth of pennies — 84,480 to be exact — and invite people to use the coins to create designs and messages on the steps, pavers, sidewalks and stone walls around the group’s “clubhouse” at 518 N. Elm St.

The goal — other than providing a place for people to be artistic, eat a food-truck lunch, and enjoy live music — is to get folks talking about mental health; about 1 in 5 people will experience a diagnosable mental health challenge in any given year, according to Terri Jackson, Sanctuary House’s chief philanthropy officer.

She stresses that every person, every conversation and every donation matters.

There’s that idea again: The power of one.

It’s a reassuring message, a different kind of cool, some 60 years after my first crush on penny loafers. Incidentally, my feet aren’t as flat as they used to be, thanks partly to decades of exercise in supportive, lace-up tennis shoes. That’s why I’m willing to spend some shoe leather tracking down the right pair of loafers, size 8 or 8.5, if you happen to trip over a pair.

I can hear the tinny voice of The Talking Tree now.

“Enjoy your pretty shoes, Maria.”

I will.

I think I’ve finally grown into them.

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

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A Fascinating Little Bird

The trickery of the killdeer

By Susan Campbell

The killdeer is a small, brown-and-white shorebird that breeds in the Sandhills and Piedmont of North Carolina. The species can be found here year-round in the right habitat — and it need not be all that wet. Widespread in North America, most of the killdeer population lives away from the water’s edge. In fact, for egg laying, the drier the spot, the better. In truth, our sandy soil is not unlike the beaches where one would expect to find a shorebird.

This robin-sized bird gets its name from its call: a loud “kill-deer, kill-deer,” which can be heard day or night. During migration, individuals frequently vocalize on the wing, high in the air. In early spring adults will circle above their territory calling incessantly.

On the ground, killdeer are a challenge to spot. They blend in well with the dark ground, hidden against the mottled surface of a tilled field or a gravel covering. Killdeer employ a “run-and-stop” foraging strategy searching for insect prey on the ground. As they run, they may stir up insects, which will be gobbled up as the birds come to a quick halt. Although they live in close proximity to humans, killdeer are quite shy and more likely to run than fly if approached. When alarmed, they frequently use a quick head bob or two, likely a strategy to make the birds appear larger than they are.

During the winter months, flocks of killdeer concentrate in open, insect-rich habitat such as ball fields, golf courses or harvested croplands. Come spring, pairs will search out drier substrates, preferring sandy or rocky areas for nesting. They may even use flat, gravel rooftops. The female merely scrapes a slight depression where she lays four to six speckled eggs that blend in with the surroundings. She will sit perfectly still on her nest and incubate the eggs for three to four weeks. If disturbed by a potential predator, the female killdeer will employ distraction displays to draw the intruder away from the eggs, going so far as to feign a broken wing. The mother bird will call loudly and with her tail spread — to be as noticeable as possible — limp along dragging a wing on the ground. This “broken wing act” can be very convincing, giving the predator the idea that following the female will result in an easy meal. Once away from the nest, the killdeer will fly off, not returning to the eggs until she is convinced the coast is clear. Should distractions by the adults not be effective, the pair will find a new nesting location and begin again. A very determined nester, killdeer are capable of producing up to three broods in a summer.

When the eggs hatch, it will be a synchronous affair. As soon as they have dried off, the downy, long-legged young will immediately follow their mother away from the nest to a safer, more protected area nearby. They will follow her, being fed and brooded along the way, for several weeks. Once they are fully feathered, the young will have learned not only how to escape danger but how and where to find food.

So, if you hear a “kill-deer” over the next couple of months, stop and look closely. You may be rewarded with a peek into the summer life of this fascinating little bird.

Chaos Theory

CHAOS THEORY

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Long Live . . .

All the magic and body art

By Cassie Bustamante

My mom wears a black-green, wide-leg jumpsuit, accented with a gold belt. She’s 70, but you’d never know it. Her hazel eyes smile in my direction. It’s a look I’ve seen through many softball games, high school drama productions and even at the birth of my oldest. She’s always cheered me on, and today is no different as I prepare to take the podium to introduce our two authors at our O.Henry Magazine Author Series.

As soon as I see her, I comment on her outfit. “Mom,” I say, “You look fabulous! I almost wore a sleeveless jumpsuit, too, but was afraid the tattoo on my arm would be too aggressive.” Instead, I’d opted for a black dress with sheer long sleeves, the whole thing glimmering with gold stars and my tattoo tucked away.

“Well, it’s one of those you can just wash off, right?” my mom asks.

“Uh, no,” I say. “It’s real. Emmy and I did it together this summer.”

“Oh,” Mom replies, her voice suddenly many octaves higher. I can tell she’s horrified that my 18-year-old daughter and I got inked together.

Mom and I have always bonded over books, passing them back and forth between us. Body art, not so much.

And this isn’t her first rodeo, nor mine. When I decided to get myself a tattoo for my 19th birthday, my mom retorted, “It’s your body, do what you want.”

That, followed by, “But remember, it’s going to be there forever.”

Forever, got it. To the tattoo parlor I went, returning home with a small daisy on my inner right ankle.

A few years later, I added another small-ish tattoo on my lower back — a graphic sun to pay homage to my zodiac sign, Leo. Yes, I fell victim to what was soon dubbed the “tramp stamp,” but, according to TikTok, they’re making a comeback. And, to be honest, I always forget it’s there until someone sees it and mentions it.

Almost 25 years later, when Emmy says to me that she’d like to get a tattoo, I jump on board.

“I want a new one, too! Can I come?” I ask. “What are you thinking?”

We spend the next couple of months deciding on designs. Emmy selects a small paper airplane followed by a trail of sparkling stars to put on her wrist. I find a design I like, but personalize it a bit to fit me. It’s an open book, a trail of stars, the moon and Saturn escaping its pages. At the very top, I add a four-leaf clover to honor my late business partner and friend who owned Sweet Clover, a vintage home store, with me. And below the book, it reads, “long live all the magic.”

While that quote is a line from my favorite Taylor Swift song, it’s also about writing my stories. May the memories and moments I capture live long after I am gone for my own kids to treasure. Or laugh at. Whichever, as long as it brings them joy.

We schedule an appointment with Taylor (yes, that’s her name!) at Dogwood Ink Tattoo. Emmy’s best friend, Kiah, joins us and in less than 90 minutes, we’re out of there, all with fresh body art on our forearms.

A few weeks later, it dawns on me that I don’t quite know why Emmy went with the paper airplane so I ask her about it.

“Remember when we went to the Eras concert, Mom?”

“Of course,” I say. How could I forget taking my only daughter to Taylor Swift’s epic show.

“Our bonus song was ‘Out of the Woods,’” she says, then quotes the song. “You know, ‘Two paper airplanes flying.’”

Wow, her tattoo is to commemorate a special moment with me? I feel myself choking up, grateful that Emmy and I, like my mom and I have books, have music. And now tattoos that, yes, Mom, will be there forever.

Suddenly, I wish I’d gotten a paper airplane, too.

I look down at my own right wrist, free of designs. Maybe one day. 

Almanac May 2026

ALMANAC

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Almanac

May 2026

By Ashley Walshe

May is a blessing, a benediction, a rhythmic string of sacred prayers.

May robin, cardinal and wren sing the dawn sky pink and sweet.

May the warmth of sun nourish all that grows.

May hummingbird carry the laughter of one thousand flowers everywhere he goes.

May fox kits emerge from their dens, plump and playful. May the bluebirds hatch, the bluestar bloom, the bullfrogs blast their jug-o-rums.

Let the passion vines blossom with whimsy. Let the wild indigo paint the open woods. Let the last of the dainty bluebells ring out.

Let there be rainfall. Let titmouse bathe in shallow pools of water. Let the earthworms feast on spoiled fruit.

Let go of last season’s sorrow. Let this new day surprise you. Let what is here be enough.

The woody scent of yarrow. The hum of bees. Green leaves in golden light.

Breathe in the bouquet of microbes and wild strawberry. Breathe it out. Now, breathe it in again.

Behold the majesty of magnolia, the bliss of cartwheels, the grace of speckled fawn in soft grass.

May the whippoorwill return, and when he does, may every wild thing taste the sweetness of its own name, chanted one hundred times over.

May the wind keep the secret of each dandelion. May the garden feed body and soul. And, above all, may spring be a hymn of thanks for and from this fertile earth.

Ring of Fire

The ancient Celts celebrated the changing seasons with four cross-quarter festivals: Samhain (Oct 31–Nov. 1), Imbolc (Feb. 1–2), Bealtaine (May 1) and Lughnasadh/Lammas (Aug. 1). On Bealtaine, a Gaelic May Day festival honoring the fecund soils of the Earth, fire rituals were said to bring purification and fertility to the land, livestock and couples wishing to conceive.

According to Scottish author James Napier, dew collected on the first day of May “preserved the skin from wrinkles and freckles, and gave a glow of youth” (Folk Lore: Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland Within This Century, 1879). And how might one collect said droplets? Dew tell.

If it’s drama that you sigh for,

plant a garden and you’ll get it.

You will know the thrill of battle

fighting foes that will beset it.

If you long for entertainment and

for pageantry most glowing,

Plant a garden and this summer spend

your time with green things growing.

                            — Edgar Guest, “Plant a Garden”

Mamas and Moons

The mothers are tending. Bluebird, to her hatchlings. Doe, to her fawn. Racoon, to her litter of kits.

This month, Mother’s Day lands on Sunday, May 10. Honor the ones who tend in the ways that feel true to you — and them.

And while we’re on the topic of feminine glory: May will be graced by two full moons — the full flower moon on May 1, and a blue moon on May 31.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Taurus

(April 20 – May 20)

You’re a glutton for luxury, it’s true. But this month, amid the blur of artisanal cocktails and regenerative facial serums, you’ll ache for something simple: direction. As luck would have it, a Mercury cazimi in Taurus will deliver a moment of crystal clarity on May 14. Combine that with the new moon on May 16 and a slap on the hindquarters from Mars (May 18), and you’ve got yourself a road map. Pack your ahimsa silk pillowcase, sweetheart. Life may be guiding you someplace you never imagined. 

Tea leaf  “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Three words: guac and chips. 

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Release the outcome. 

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Beware of shiny objects. 

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)  

Don’t let the light bulb drive you crazy.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Opt for the linen.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Three o’clock, darling.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Retire the busted ones. 

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Delete the app.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Try taking smaller bites. 

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Leave a paper trail. 

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

BYO hot sauce.

Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

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Letter to a June Bug

From a Homegrown Ogden Nash

By Jim Dodson

My daughter, Maggie, was born in 1989.

That year became known as the “Year of Revolutions,” a turning point in world affairs that witnessed the opening of the Berlin Wall, a Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the end of communism in Europe’s eastern bloc. It also saw the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the birth of the World Wide Web and the first commercial internet providers — social revolutions of a different kind. 

Mugs, as I called my beautiful baby girl from day one, was born in the aftermath of a huge snowstorm in Maine. We took her home to our cottage on Bailey Island on day two, after her paternal grandparents arrived from North Carolina. 

One of my fondest memories is of sliding on my rump down the deep, snowy hill behind our cottage,  my bundled-up baby clutched to my chest. When I looked at my daughter’s tiny face, I swear she was almost smiling. 

Upon returning home to Carolina, my dad, a veteran newspaperman with a poet’s heart, jotted me a note of gratitude with a bit of whimsical verse attached. He fancied himself, I think, a homegrown Ogden Nash. 

Sadly, I can only remember the opening lines of the ditty because I kept it in my office desk forever until it apparently migrated into attic boxes stuffed with half a century of manuscripts, letters and correspondence. Someday, I hope to unearth it. In the meantime, here’s the only bit that I can recall, advice from a happy grandpa: 

There’s nothing in this whole wide world / As precious as a baby girl / who someday soon will surely be / A child as happy as can be / Your job, my son, is take her hand . . . at which point my memory fails.

•

When Maggie and husband Nate visited us in the autumn of ’24, she graciously offered to plow through my mountains of archives and work papers, giving me hope that she might find my dad’s wise, little verse. 

Instead, she found a pile of letters from my early career that included an unopened one from legendary New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn. He complimented me for an investigative piece on a forgotten African American community I’d written for the Sunday magazine of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where I was a staff writer. He’d read it while waiting for a plane home to New York from Major League Baseball’s spring training in Florida. He also wondered if I had interest in writing for his magazine.

I laughed at this discovery because my career ambition in those early days was to someday write my way to The New Yorker.

My daughter was incredulous. “Dad,” she playfully chided, “how could you have not opened this letter?”  

Sheepishly, I explained that I had a habit in those days (and even today) of setting aside important letters to read and properly answer later. “I probably just put it in my cluttered desk and forgot about it,” I theorized. “Crazy, I know.” 

But if a dream job at The New Yorker was never to be, I added, perhaps my mistake was a perfect, unanswered prayer. 

For, if I’d achieved my ambition to work for The New Yorker, I probably never would have burned out covering crime, politics and racial justice in the so-called New South and fled to a winding trout stream in Vermont, where I soon became the first senior writer of Yankee Magazine, married her mom, built a gorgeous house on a forested hill in Maine, and became the father of two beautiful babies. Moreover, I never would have also found my way home to North Carolina, where I wrote a dozen books and helped start several popular arts-and-culture magazines across my home state that are thriving today. 

•

Last May, we were thrilled to learn that Maggie was pregnant with our first grandchild, a baby girl due on Christmas Eve.  

June Sinclair Prescott arrived early, born seven days before Christmas Eve, weighing in at a healthy 9.9 pounds. I immediately nicknamed her “June Bug,” because they are said to bring good luck and my spring garden is always full of them.

Maggie’s mom and my first wife, Alison, flew to Los Angeles first to be with mother and baby as they got better acquainted.

The plan called for “Nana and PopPop,” aka Wendy and Jim, to follow in early January. Unfortunately, a powerful ice storm struck the day before our flight was to depart. A flow of adorable photos and videos of “June Bug” had to suffice. In half of them, she appeared to be smiling and even belly laughing. Like her mama at the same age.

Two weeks later, we tried again. This time on the eve of departure, it snowed 13 inches and thousands of flights up and down the East Coast got cancelled. Including ours. 

The day after the big snowstorm — shades of Maggie’s own birthday in 1989 — the sun popped out and I stepped outside to fill the bird feeders and think about my spring garden. An old idea suddenly came to me.  

Pushing the snow off my favorite wooden chair, I sat down and jotted a letter in light verse to my new grandchild like the homegrown Ogden Nash who preceded me. I also asked my good friend, artist Harry Blair, to illustrate it.  

Dear June Bug,

Someday while you are still a tyke, 

I’ll take you on a wondrous hike

To see the world from on a hill

And all the places that will fill

Your life ahead with joyful things —

Like winter snows and golden springs.

For nature is the ideal guide

To leafy paths that cannot hide

The glory of a world that’s wide —

With loving souls so full of grace

Who’ll help you find your perfect place

To live the life your heart desires —

With faith — and strength — that never tires.

                   With my love forever, 

                    PopPop 

Our third effort to reach Los Angles proved a charm. 

We took the illustrated verse, lots of cute, new baby clothes and a lovely Swedish bear to finally meet our beautiful new grandchild. All we did for five days was rock, hike, hold, cuddle, feed and play with the June Bug and her mama.

Like her mother, baby June was born at a moment of revolutionary change and turmoil across the planet. But I have a feeling that our laughing June Bug will bring good luck and happiness to anyone she meets on her life’s journey, just as her mother has.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Doubling Down

Finding the familiar in the extraordinary

By Jim Moriarty

“If you don’t tell their story, who will?”

This was the question posed to Christina Baker Kline by Lesley Looper, a cousin and Duke University librarian, about the lives of the renowned “Siamese twins” Chang and Eng Bunker and their wives, Sarah and Adelaide Yates — Kline’s distant relatives.

The short answer is that a lot of people have. The famous brothers, conjoined at the chest, who came to America in 1829 and eventually settled in North Carolina, have been satirized in poetry, made cameo appearances in works by Herman Melville and Mark Twain, been used as a metaphor during the War Between the States, and been the subject — or at least the literary device — of 21st-century musicals, plays and movies. Does the fact that Kline’s genealogical family tree includes them make her imaginings somehow more prescient? Since the twins died 152 years ago, probably not. What is quite clear from the earliest pages of Kline’s The Foursome, due out this month, is that she has taken extraordinary care to imagine her characters less as curiosity and more as men and women in full, portrayed with distinct traits, virtues and flaws, and very much creatures of their age, one of America’s most turbulent times.

Here’s a Wikipedia-worthy primer: Chang and Eng were brought to the United States from Siam (today’s Thailand) by the Scottish merchant Robert Hunter and a sea captain named Abel Coffin, who put them “on tour” in Britain and America. The on-again, off-again business wound up a decade later with the brothers touring on their own with their own staff, becoming wealthy in the process. In July 1839 they made an appearance in Jefferson, North Carolina, and in October of that year, they returned to purchase 150 acres in Wilkes County, where they would meet and marry the Yates sisters. This is where the novel takes over.

When Kline realized that Sarah (Sallie) was not buried in the same resting place as Chang, Eng and her sister, Adelaide, she discovered the voice of her narrator. Sallie is as clear-eyed about herself as she is every other character in the novel. “Addie possessed the self-assurance of the beautiful. She was used to being seen, and it made her bold about being heard,” writes Kline. “I inherited our mother’s round cheeks, her solid bones and small gray eyes, her unruly auburn hair. Addie took after Papa’s family: tall and lean, with dark-fringed lashes and high cheekbones. She shone in contrast to my ordinariness. She was charming while I was shy.”

The vivacious Addie is drawn to Chang, the more dominant brother. “Addie claimed she’d fallen in love with Chang, and maybe she had. She said she felt it deeply. But Addie felt everything deeply,” writes Kline. “Somehow, though I’d voiced my misgivings from the beginning, I’d let the months unspool without taking a firm stand. Now I found myself swept up in my sister’s insistence that marrying the brothers was the right, the only, thing to do.”

Kline doesn’t shy from the physical awkwardness of this union squared, though neither does she dwell on it. The mantra for Sallie is compartmentalization. Don’t think about everything, “only the next thing.”

The sisters’ conversation on their wedding day is portrayed like this:

“Everyone will be staring at us,” I whispered.

“Of course they will. We’re the brides.”

“They’re thinking about — about tonight.”

“Don’t be silly. Nobody’s thinking about that, except maybe you. You’ll be fine. Remember: only the next thing. All right?”

“All right.”

The foursome marries in 1843. After finessing the physical, Kline does an admirable job of portraying these two families through the next 30-plus, turbulent years, through war, peace, the inevitable loss of parents, the birth, and sometimes tragic death, of children and the eventual death of Chang and Eng. In fact, it is this dramatization of the travails of two families that, in a way, normalizes that which is anything but. The couples eventually live in separate houses, one in Surrey County, one in Wilkes County, spending three days at each. “During the three days in the home of the host, the visiting brother will conduct no business and express no opinions. He is to be a silent partner,” declares Chang. Between them the two families would have 21 children who would grow into an assortment of cousins devoted to one another.

Though joined at the chest, the brothers are not the same person. “Eng liked to gamble, his eyes brightening with each new hand. Chang preferred to drink. Neither quite approved of the other’s vice.” Chang could be cruel and moody, Eng the peacemaker. “Eng’s instinct was to ignore or concede, but even he had his limits. Sometimes, like a cat poked too often, he struck back. More than ever, I saw how tightly the band bound him to his brother. What had once been a tether now felt like a shackle.”

Every time their financial picture darkens, the brothers go back on the road to refill the coffers, but the way they are perceived has changed. What once was a curiosity has given way to ridicule. They eventually hook up with P.T. Barnum, who dislikes the brothers because of their independent streak as much as they detest the famous showman for his exploitation.

Chang and Eng are free men of color who become slaveholders and supporters of the Southern cause. Two sons, one from each family, fight for the Confederacy. “The brothers had learned early on that the world is divided into those with power and those without. Those who own and those who are owned. They’d decided — perhaps from the moment they first felt the weight of coins in their palms — where they stood on that divide.” The families feel the depravations of war and struggle with issues of race. “The shortages deepened. Every stitch of fabric was repurposed, every scrap of food stretched.” Stoneman’s cavalry came. The world changes, the enslaved are enslaved no more. “The hardest part wasn’t learning to do things for ourselves, though that was difficult enough. It was learning to see people we’d spent years looking through. To acknowledge that the women who had wiped our children’s tears had children of their own whose hurts had gone unseen.”

If the world paid attention to Chang and Eng, Kline gives more than equal time to Sallie and Addie and the place of women in the 19th century, dramatized throughout, from unwanted pregnancies at the hands of unscrupulous men; to Eng, the slaveowner taking advantage of the enslaved Grace; to the assured figure of Sallie’s lesbian aunt, Joan. Given all that, The Foursome stretches beyond the voyeuristic, attempting to paint a fuller picture of two brothers and two sisters, tethered by more than just flesh.